r or smaller sums, among the
players. The worthy Hidalgo, who has received three-quarters of a
dollar, forgetting that he has spent a whole one, is wild with joy, and
runs to spend his shillings at the tavern. Something like this once
happened in France. Barbarous as the country of A---- was, however, the
government did not trust the stupidity of the inhabitants enough to make
them accept such singular protection, and hence this was what it
devised:

"The country was intersected with roads. The government had them
measured, exactly, and then said to the farmers, 'All that you can steal
from travelers between these boundaries is yours; let it serve you as a
_bounty_, a protection, and an encouragement.' It afterwards assigned to
each manufacturer and each ship-builder, a bit of road to work up,
according to this formula:

Dono tibi et concedo,
Virtutem et puissantiam,
Robbandi,
Pillageandi,
Stealandi,
Cheatandi,
Et Swindlandi,
Impune per totam istam,
Viam.

"Now it has come to pass that the natives of the Kingdom of A---- are so
familiarized with this regime, and so accustomed to think only of what
they steal, and not of what is stolen from them, so habituated to look
at pillage but from the pillager's point of view, that they consider the
sum of all these private robberies as _national profit_, and refuse to
give up a system of protection without which, they say, no branch of
industry can live."

Do you say, it is not possible that an entire nation could see an
_increase of riches_ where the inhabitants plundered one another?

Why not? We have this belief in France, and every day we organize and
practice _reciprocal robbery_ under the name of bounties and protective
tariffs.

Let us exaggerate nothing, however; let us concede that as far as the
_mode of collection_, and the collateral circumstances, are concerned,
the system in the Kingdom of A---- may be worse than ours; but let us
say, also, that as far as principles and necessary results are
concerned, there is not an atom of difference between these two kinds
of robbery legally organized to eke out the profits of industry.

Observe, that if _highway robbery_ presents some difficulties of
execution, it has also certain advantages which are not found in the
_tariff robbery_.

For instance: An equitable division can be made between all the
plunderers. It is not thus with tariffs. They are by nature im